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A Lightweight, Secure, and Scalable Blockchain-Fog-IoMT Healthcare Framework with IPFS Data Storage for Healthcare 4.0

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Abstract

The gathering, processing, transmission, sharing, and storage of healthcare data was the core idea behind Healthcare 4.0. Currently, most of the existing solutions for offering smart healthcare services rely on cloud-based platforms. The main issues with current healthcare systems include storage overhead, processing speed, scalability, single points of failure, bandwidth requirements, and device connectivity. The recent challenges in the healthcare system motivated us to develop a system by integrating the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), Blockchain, fog computing, and InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to achieve decentralization, scalability, security, immutability, and data privacy. In this paper, we propose a novel IoMT and Blockchain framework with fog node computing to reduce latency and speed up processing, as well as to reduce the network congestion, bandwidth requirements, and the main Blockchain network overload. Untrusted devices are connected to the system using a proxy monitor, which records the device’s activity. In addition, the interplanetary file system (IPFS) is integrated with the Blockchain network to store patient data and files in order to ensure the system’s decentralization, scalability, security, and privacy. Moreover, we evaluate the proposed framework in terms of security, scalability, latency, storage, efficiency, and performance. The experimental analysis shows that the proposed framework makes access, searches, uploads, and downloads faster and more secure.

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Data availability

In order to give stakeholders precise information on the accessibility and availability of healthcare data stored on the blockchain network, a strong Data Availability mechanism is planned to be implemented in.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully credit the IoT and Cloud Computing Lab of IIIT Bhubaneswar for providing computational resources.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science and Engineering, International Institute of Information Technology, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, 751003, India

    Soubhagya Ranjan Mallick & Rakesh Kumar Lenka

  2. Computer Science and Engineering, Silicon Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, 751024, India

    Pradyumna Kumar Tripathy

  3. Information Technology, Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology, Burla, Odisha, 768018, India

    D. Chandrasekhar Rao

  4. Computer Science and Engineering, Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, 495009, India

    Suraj Sharma

  5. School of Computer Science and Engineering, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, 751024, India

    Niranjan Kumar Ray

Authors
  1. Soubhagya Ranjan Mallick
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  2. Rakesh Kumar Lenka
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  3. Pradyumna Kumar Tripathy
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  4. D. Chandrasekhar Rao
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  5. Suraj Sharma
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Rakesh Kumar Lenka, Pradyumna Kumar Tripathy or D. Chandrasekhar Rao.

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This article is part of the topical collection “Innovation in Smart Things: A Systems, Security, and AI Perspective” guest edited by Niranjan K Ray, Prasanth Yanambaka and Rakesh Balabantaray.

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Mallick, S.R., Lenka, R.K., Tripathy, P.K. et al. A Lightweight, Secure, and Scalable Blockchain-Fog-IoMT Healthcare Framework with IPFS Data Storage for Healthcare 4.0. SN COMPUT. SCI. 5, 198 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42979-023-02511-8

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